By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
The FCTA has demolished over 500 illegal building yesterday in Zamani village close to Nnamdi Azikiwe due to increasing criminal activities around the settlement.
According to Director , Development Control Department, Murkhar Galadima the exercise carried out at the aborigine settlement is a continuous one aimed at sanitizing the city from
environmental nuisance and security threats to the nation’s capital city.
He said: “We are demolishing illegal structures all over Abuja. There are over 500 illegal houses that were demolished today alone”.
“You could see that no houses were spared, it is only indigenous houses that were spared, whether you give someone money, it doesn’t matter, that is why I said it is not true. ”
“Even those, we marked some people tried to cover up our markings and we removed those structures, and we haven’t finished the exercise and we will finish it tomorrow.”
He however, denied on the spot bribing of FCTA staff because according to him it didn’t stop them doing their jobs.
Also the Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring Inspection and Enforcement to the minister of FCT, Ikahro Attah, said the indigenous houses were spared during the exercise, because they were living in Abuja, before the creation of the capital city.
“Yes, upon the directive of Minister of Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Malam Muhammad Bello that said all illegal expansion of indigenous villages should be halted immediately.”
“Sadly people who should have gotten legal lands in other parts of the city, come to buy land here, with agreement written on full scalp sheets, believing that government would not come and when government comes people will defend them.”
“But, we discovered that many people invested wrongly in a very painful manner. We saw hundreds of structures that were illegally built, we had to remove them and restore master plan and check in security and to also nature development in the city.”
Furthermore Attah said,”It is not true the indigenous houses were demolished the ones that were partly touched was immediately stopped. Anyone who said the indigenous houses were demolished is not serious. Even the non indigenes are very angry that we didn’t touched the indigenous houses. ”
“The indigenes are the ones that have rights because we met them in Abuja and untill when they are resettled and compensated, the other ones don’t have right because they invested their funds wrongly .”
A victim of the demolition,
Ganiyu Musa, lamented of being treated as a second class citizen in his own country.
“I bought from the community Chief and I believe a community Chief have some rights to sell small land. When they came they didn’t mark my house, they didn’t touch my house, I was not at home. Nobody talked to anybody I wasn’t around and they demolished my house as if am not a Nigerian.”
”
The government should know that we can not all stay in high brow areas and they should remember that their cooks, drivers, house helps live in areas like this”, he said.
